395 Sheet – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

Search for:

Reading Time: 3 minutes [418 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

LEO M. FRANK, 363

You and I haven’t the physical strength, but there is certain language and certain statements and assertions made in this statement by this defendant which merit some consideration. This defendant stated to you, after His Honor had excluded our evidence and properly, I think, that his wife visited him at the police station. He says that she was there almost in hysterics, having been brought there by her father and two brothers-in-law and Rabbi Marx—no, Rabbi Marx was with me, I consulted with him as to the advisability of allowing my dear wife to come up to the top floor to see those surroundings, city detectives, reporters, and snapshotters. He doesn't prove that by a living soul and relies merely upon his own statement. If they could have proven it by Rabbi Marx, who was there and advised him, why didn’t they do it? Do you tell me that there lives a true wife, conscious of her husband’s innocence, that wouldn’t have gone through snapshotters, reporters, and everything else, to have seen him?

Mr. Arnold: I must object to as unfair and outrageous an argument as that, that his wife didn’t go there through any consciousness of guilt on his part. I have sat here and heard the unfairest argument I have ever heard, and I can’t object to it, but I do object to his making any allusion to the failure of the wife to go and see him; it’s unfair, it isn’t the way to treat a man on trial for his life.

The Court: Is there any evidence to that effect?

Mr. Dorsey: Here is the statement I have read.

Mr. Arnold: I object to his drawing any conclusions from his wife going or not going, one way or the other; it’s an outrage upon law and decency and fairness.

The Court: Whatever was in the evidence or the statement, I must allow it.

Mr. Dorsey: “Let the galled jade wince”—

Mr. Arnold: I object to that; I'm not a “galled jade,” and I've got a right to object. I'm not galled at all, and that statement is entirely uncalled for.

Frank said that his wife never went back there because she was afraid that the snapshotters would get her picture—because she didn’t want to go through the line of snapshotters. I tell you, gentlemen of the jury, that there never lived a woman, conscious of the rectitude and innocence of her husband, who would not have gone through any ordeal to see him.

---